Bomber's Moon
by Vi Co
Summary: While on a mission, Hogan and the others encounter a downed airman. It wasn't a bomber's moon.
1. Chapter One

It wasn't a bomber's moon. Whatever else that night might have been, it wasn't a bomber's moon, and the four men on the ground knew it. If it had been a bomber's moon, they would have been asleep in their barracks, threadbare blankets wrapped around their lean bodies. But it wasn't and so they were out, slinking silently through the bushes toward the railway siding.

"Hold up a minute," came the hissed whisper from the shadowy figure in the lead. The other three closed ranks around the first man, their heads moving slowly from side to side as they appraised the situation.

They all saw the same thing. There were two guards stationed on each side of the bridge and another two on each side patrolling the riverbanks. The patrols didn't have floodlights, but each man had a flashlight at his belt. The four crouched in the bushes could hear the metal of the flashlight clinking against the metal of the guard's side-arms with every step.

"How close do we have to be to set off the charges?" the leader asked, turning to one of the others at his side.

"We have to be at least there." The excited whisper was accompanied by a jab of a finger toward a stand of trees about fifty metres from the tracks. "Too much closer and we'll be caught in the explosion. Too much further and the wire won't reach."

"I thought we got more wire in the last airdrop."

A silent shake of the head. One of the others answered, "It didn't come, mon colonel."

The leader passed a hand up over his dark hair. "Everyone saw that stand of trees Carter pointed to?" His answer was a round of nods. "We'll meet back there at oh-one-hundred hours. Newkirk, you and Carter wire the bridge itself as best you can. LeBeau and I will take care of the section of track around the bend."

Splitting off in pairs, they headed toward their objectives. Two men moved along the tree-line toward the place where the tracks curved around a corner. The other two slipped quickly back into the brush, moving toward the bridge. The night was still quiet, almost too quiet for what it was. But in the silence it hadn't lost its purpose; it was another night in a string of nights fighting a private war within a war.

But it wasn't to remain silent for long. The four men had only just started back toward the grouping of trees when the sound of bomber engines drifted toward them from the west. Ears perked, the men could tell almost immediately that the planes were British. The newly-reconstructed bridge had obviously been dubbed important enough to send bombers in after all.

The guards stopped in their patrols to turn their eyes skyward, anticipating something. The four men didn't take the time to stop and wonder what the guards were anticipating. The four were making the most of the time to get back to their meeting place before the appointed time. They only had moments to spare.

The planes were silhouetted darkly against the black sky. And then that black sky was afire with bright bursts of flak. The flack guns were on the other side of the river, hidden from aerial photography by the trees. The bombers had flown right into a set-up.

Three of the four had frozen, eyes turned toward the heavens and glued to the bombers. The fourth, the leader, allowed it for just a moment. Then he whispered, "Carter, get wiring that detonator. If we can set it off when the bombs start dropping, they won't know that it wasn't just a lucky hit."

"Yes, sir," Carter answered, turning immediately to his work. His quick fingers darted among the various wires, connecting the fuse box to the bundles of charges they'd spread out along the railway. The others kept their eyes glued to the sky.

Bombs started dropping from above the bridge. But it wasn't a bomber's moon and they weren't coming close to the target. The first set landed too far to the north, blasting a section of forest into oblivion. The second were too far south, annihilating another section of forest. "Hurry, Carter," one of the others hissed. "There aren't too many more coming."

"Done, sir," Carter answered.

"Well, what are you bloody waiting for?" someone asked.

"There are no planes overhead," the leader answered. "We have to wait until another one flies over. Just keep waiting, there's another one coming."

"Mon colonel, that plane isn't flying. It's crashing." Flames were licking at the fuselage from both engines. They could see the fire spreading from their position in the trees.

"Wait until it's overhead," the leader said. "The Germans might not notice if it drops its bombs or not. Hopefully all they'll see is explosion."

Parachutes were coming from the plane. The first cleared the plane completely and started drifting toward their hiding spot. The second brushed against the flaming body of the plane and the fabric of the parachute caught fire. They could see the flames falling. There were no others.

"Detonate it now," the leader ordered.

"Wait, Colonel Hogan. The first man, he's too close to the explosion. He'll be killed," Carter answered, his eyes following the parachute as it snagged on a tree. The dark figure beneath it slammed into the trunk and hung unmoving beneath the strings. "I'm going after him."

"There's one more plane coming over," one of the men pointed out.

Carter was already standing, ready to take off running. "Push the plunger when the bomber's overhead. I'll make sure that we're far enough away." And without waiting for permission, he took off in the direction of the white parachute.

"Carter," Hogan hissed. But it was too late. Carter's dark figure had already covered half of the short distance between the two positions. The last dash would bring him within sight of the guards on the bridge, but luck was with him and the guards were still watching the flak explode above them. The last plane was getting closer.

"Mon Dieu," one said, hiding his face in his hands, "he will never make it."

None of the others had an answer, their eyes were fixed on Carter's figure as he scaled the tree to help the man hack at the strings holding him entangled in the branches of the tree. "At least we wore our uniforms tonight," Hogan said, eyes flickering up to the last bomber as it drew ever closer. Carter and the airman only had maybe about thirty seconds to get to safety.

The dark figure dangling beneath the parachute dropped suddenly to the ground and the watchers could see Carter scamper quickly down the tree. Together the two moved off toward safety. But they didn't have much time; the bomber was almost overhead. Hogan's hand hesitated on the plunger. He knew that the two men were still too close to the explosion.

Carter knew it too, but he motioned over his head for Hogan to detonate the explosives. Hogan applied a little pressure to the plunger, but his hand hesitated once more. The bomber was directly overhead. Hogan pushed the plunger.

The bridge exploded in a fireball and around the bend in the track, the same angry flash could be seen. The bomber released its bombs at almost the same time as the explosives blew, but the bombs went wide, taking down still more trees, but likely little else. It wasn't a bomber's moon.

There was no sign of Carter or the airman. Waiting for a second to allow the secondary explosions to settle, Hogan turned to the two men still with him. "We've only got a few minutes before these woods are crawling with Germans. Spread out and comb the area you saw them in before the bomb went off."

They moved silently off, splitting off in different directions so that they could cover more area in less time. "Why would he do such a reckless thing?" Hogan whispered to himself as he moved through the brush toward the point where he had last seen Carter. "He knew what would happen if he didn't get far enough away."

There was no sign of him in the bushes in front of Hogan. He closed his eyes, trying to remember exactly where he had last seen the two figures. He needed to be a little further east; they had been closer to the bridge. He was starting to move toward the spot where he thought he had seen them last when he heard a sharp whisper from behind him.

"Over 'ere."

Both of the other men hurried over. Carter was sprawled out on the ground, bleeding slightly from a gash on his forehead. Other than that he appeared fine. He had landed on a relatively clear spot on the ground. Hogan knelt to gently slap Carter's cheeks. "Come on, Carter, wake up." It took a few slaps, but he started to come around, moaning a little and clutching his head.

"Find the other guy," Hogan ordered, helping Carter up into a sitting position. "He can't be far from here." The other two split off immediately. They both knew that time was of the essence. The Germans would be flooding into the woods at any second.

"Anything broken?' Hogan asked, fingers gently feeling the cut on Carter's head.

"I don't think so, colonel," Carter answered a little shakily. "But my head sure hurts."

"You're going to have quite a shiner in the morning. You think you can walk?"

Carter nodded and Hogan helped him to his feet. If the others didn't find the airman in the next minute, they would have to leave without him. "Where's the other guy?" Carter asked, supporting himself on a nearby tree a little.

"Newkirk and LeBeau are looking right now." There was something in Hogan's voice that made Carter stand a little straighter, almost as though he were expecting to be dressed down for his actions.

"I had to, sir," Carter started, defending himself already. "I couldn't just let him die. Not when he's one of ours."

Hogan might have answered, but there was another call. "Over here."

Hogan hurried over. Carter followed a little more slowly. The airman hadn't been as lucky as Carter and had landed awkwardly over a log. In the darkness, and against his dark flight suit, it was difficult to see anything. They couldn't just tell by sight if he had any serious injuries, but they couldn't take the time to examine him properly, already German orders could be heard from where the tracks had once been.

"Newkirk, you think you can carry him?" Hogan asked, jerking his head toward the prone airman.

Newkirk nodded. "I think so, guv'nor." Without waiting for Hogan to respond, he knelt and scooped the man up into his arms. "At least I can carry 'im for a while."

"Unless we want to get friendly with some Krauts, let's get a move on." Hogan started striding off deeper into the woods. "LeBeau, give Carter a hand."

"I'm fine," Carter asserted, pushing himself away from his tree. He swayed and LeBeau stepped in quickly to steady him.

"In the interests of speed," Hogan said, turning and raising his eyebrows at Carter. Carter nodded slowly and allowed LeBeau to help him.

Newkirk shifted the dead weight of the airman more comfortably into his arms and followed behind Hogan and the entwined figures of LeBeau and Carter. "This is going to be one bloody long walk," he whispered, trying to walk as fast as he could without stumbling.


	2. Chapter Two

"Look, guv'nor," Newkirk panted after half an hour of cross-country trekking, "we're going to have to stop for a minute." But he continued to put one foot in front of the other, trying to shift the still unconscious airman higher into his arms.

Hogan turned to look behind him at the Englishman. They had put some distance between themselves and the railway siding, true, but they were still too close to the area for much comfort. But Newkirk wasn't the only one who was struggling. Carter was now leaning heavily on LeBeau and the two were trailing back almost as far as Newkirk.

But at the rate they were covering ground, they would barely make it back to the camp before daybreak. Their time had been short enough before the extra time spent with the airman and an injured Carter. "Can we stop for just a second, colonel?" Carter asked, his voice sounding weaker than Hogan would have liked.

Sighing, Hogan looked around at the wall of forest around them. It was rough going, pushing through the forest, but they were much safer from patrols than they would be on the road. But given the circumstances, perhaps this night they would have to take an easier route. They were still quite a distance from the safety of the camp. "Rest here for a minute," Hogan said, a little reluctantly. He knew they needed to stop but he also knew that they had to keep going. Resting would preserve the health and fighting strength of his men, but it could also mean capture.

"I'm going to scout up ahead a bit," Hogan declared. "Newkirk, see what you can do for Carter and our surprise guest." He knew that there was an old wood-cutters' path that ran through this part of the brush somewhere near here. They didn't usually like to use it because there was no guarantee that the Germans wouldn't have the same idea. But perhaps under the circumstances, a quick arrival back at the camp would be the best thing, even if they had to take the risk in taking the path.

It only took a few minutes of foraging before he found the spot where the canopy of trees overhead seemed a little less dense. The thin sliver of the moon shone through the thin covering of leaves. But Hogan, appraising the mossy path, didn't even turn to look upward at it. He had obviously already made his decision because he was turning to hurry back to the tiny clearing where he had left his men almost as soon as he had reached the path.

Carter was sitting propped up against a tree, head bent forward onto his hands. It was difficult to tell anything in the darkness, but Hogan could see a dark line of blood down the side of his face. The airman was still out cold. But he was obviously still alive otherwise Newkirk wouldn't be ripping up the man's flight suit in an attempt to bind some of the worst wounds. Neither of the two injured men appeared to be in the best condition.

"Can you keep moving?" Hogan asked. If the answer was no, they had no hope of making it back before daybreak and roll call. "We still have to try to be back at the camp before roll call."

Carter lifted his head to look at Hogan. "I can make it, sir." But he didn't make a move to get up and it looked like even supporting his own head was becoming a difficult task. Hogan stared at him for a moment. Carter stiffened, placing a hand behind him in an effort to push himself upright. "I can do it." He didn't even make it up off the forest floor.

Hogan reached out a hand, placing it on Carter's shoulder. It was in a position to either help him up or to restrain him back down. "I don't know if I'll make it all the way back," Newkirk volunteered reluctantly. "'e's a deadweight and it's hard pushing through the brush. But 'e needs to get to a medic soon, so I'll keep going as far as I can."

Hogan scooped his hand up under Carter's arm, helping him to an standing position. Carter swayed on his feet, but managed to keep them beneath him. "How about I take the airman for a while and you help Carter. We'll rotate and hopefully the path will stay smooth," Hogan said, helping Carter lean back against his supporting tree.

Newkirk nodded without argument, stepping briskly over to Carter and wrapping an arm around him, up under his shoulders. LeBeau looked at Hogan. "Did you say path, mon colonel?" he asked, surprise evident in his voice.

"We're going to take the path," Hogan said, bending down to scoop the airman up into his arms. "And you need to hurry back to the camp and tell Kinch what happened. He'll need the time to make up an excuse for Klink."

LeBeau nodded, striding quickly away. As he neared the edge of the clearing, he turned, looking back over his shoulder. "What story should we tell this time?"

"We'll be making our way back toward the camp, so say that I heard about an escape and went out to stop it. We'll figure out what to do about him," Hogan shifted the weight in his arms, "when the time comes."

LeBeau scurried away as fast as his legs could carry him. After a second, the sound of his footsteps was lost in the forest.

Hogan started off through the underbrush toward where he thought the path would cross their route, Newkirk and Carter following close behind. "It sure isn't a bomber's moon," Hogan muttered, trying to gauge how far they'd have to fight their way through the trees before emerging onto the path. It couldn't come soon enough. 


	3. Chapter Three

LeBeau hurried through the forest toward the camp. He would have sprinted the whole way, but the forest floor was too rough and he couldn't risk turning an ankle. He did take a diversion from the route Hogan had been taking though. LeBeau, like all of the others, had his own favoured path through this area and it was one that he knew like the back of his hand. Although it was a small distance out of his way, the Frenchman knew he'd make up the lost time when he was back on his own familiar trail.

The searchlights had already been switched off when LeBeau finally approached the camp. Dawn had hardly broken, but already the guards had deemed their vision good enough to turn off the powerful beams. Either that, or Klink had been called out for wasting electricity during wartime again. It didn't matter what reason it was, LeBeau wasn't complaining. It made his task easier, and besides, he didn't have the time. Roll call could begin at almost any moment and he still had to talk to Kinch before Shultz discovered that three of his prisoners were missing.

His eyes moving quickly from one guard tower to the others and then back along the guards at the fence, LeBeau waited patiently until he was sure it was safe to make a dash for the tree stump that hid the entrance to the emergency tunnel. It was only a few moments before he was sure none of the guards were looking, then he ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

Dropping down onto the ladder and pulling the trap door shut behind him, he jumped the last few feet onto the packed dirt floor of the tunnel.

"Where's Colonel Hogan?" a deep voice demanded.

LeBeau spun around to face the worried black man. "Sacre blue, Kinch!" the Frenchman declared, clutching at his heart in mock theatrical fashion.

"Sorry, LeBeau," he apologized. "But where are the others?" He was standing so that he blocked the doorway, his feet planted wide apart, waiting.

"They're still out there," LeBeau answered, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of outside. "Carter is hurt and…"

"Carter's hurt?" Kinch broke in, the creases on his forehead growing deeper, they looked almost as though they'd been permanently chiseled into his dark skin. He took a step toward the tunnel, almost as if he was going to go after them.

"We don't think that it's serious," LeBeau answered quickly, putting out a restraining hand to stop Kinch from bolting out of the tunnel in search of the other three. "But Newkirk and the colonel had to stay with Carter and the other airman."

"Other airman?" Kinch questioned, his body tensed and on alert. He knew that they couldn't afford to pick up random airmen. There was always a chance, a pretty big one, that it could be a German stooge. If it was a legitimate escaper from another camp, they would have had word to expect a package, but, tonight, no such word had come through.

"Oui, his bomber was shot down by the Germans near the railway siding."

"Roll call," came the shout down from above. Kinch and LeBeau started to move down the tunnel toward the barracks. They weren't done conversing yet, but they didn't have a choice.

"Where are they?" Kinch asked quickly, already jumping into a commanding role.

LeBeau shrugged. "Carter and Newkirk escaped during the night and Hogan went after them. Le colonel said he would worry about the other airman later." Kinch's gaze bore into the Frenchman and LeBeau shrugged again. "I left them about an hour ago and they were making their way here, but it will be slow."

Kinch nodded, lifting up his hat and running his hand over his dark hair. "It wasn't a bomber's moon," he acknowledged.

"Non," LeBeau answered, placing a foot on the bottom rung of the ladder leading up to the barracks. He hesitated for a second.

"Go on," Kinch said, smoothing his moustache and nodding up the ladder. "The Krauts are more insistent than your mother about being on time for things." LeBeau nodded and scurried up the ladder, Kinch only rungs behind.

LeBeau darted quickly for his bunk, hastily reaching for his beret. He knew that his hair was mussed from his hasty trip through the forest and that there were likely leaves and twigs caught in it that he didn't have time to dislodge before he was expected at roll call. With the escape of Carter, Newkirk, and Colonel Hogan, LeBeau didn't want to be noticed as being out of the ordinary. That happened enough as it was.

Kinch carefully closed and latched the bunk behind him, staring back at it longingly. It was his bunk that hid the tunnel entrance and he never seemed to make enough use of it in the normal way. It was always being used, but not in the way that it was intended. Sighing, and motioning for LeBeau to hurry, Kinch stepped over to the door.

The sun was up, but the day was still brand new. Some of the guards were as bleary eyed as the prisoners, but none had a choice about being there. Barracks Two, as always, was one of the last barracks to muster. The other barracks kept something close to normal hours and their occupants were slightly easier, although no more pleasant, to rouse.

On his way out the door into his normal position in line, Kinch tried to catch the attention of the officer standing at the head of Barracks Nine. He didn't want to catch the attention of the guards, but the officer had his back turned. Pursing his lips, Kinch started to whistle a tune, not loud, but enough so that the officer would hear the tune carry above the bustle of the compound.

It worked, and after only a few bars, the officer, his blue uniform as crisp as could be expected in a POW camp, turned to face the American. Catching Kinch's eye, the officer nodded. Kinch nodded back and let his whistling fade down a notch or two and switch into a popular Glenn Miller tune.

The gaps in the ranks of Barracks Two were obvious and the prisoners made no attempt to hide them from the guards. Kinch could have encouraged a scuffle or some distractions that would have made the absences less obvious, but if Carter was hurt somewhere out in the woods, it was to his benefit to have Klink call out the dogs for a full search of the area.

Standing loosely at attention, as was the custom, the camp waited to hear the story this time. Out of the ordinary had become the ordinary since Colonel Hogan had arrived and the prisoners had learned to be surprised at little. The German guards were a different story though and one was worried confronting Kinch, glancing backwards over his shoulder for the kommandant as he spoke. "Where is Colonel Hogan?" he begged, clutching his clipboard in his large hands. "Is he still asleep in his quarters?" he asked hopefully, stepping the direction of the barracks.

Kinch stepped forward to block his path. "He's not here, Shultz."

"He's not here," Shultz repeated desperately. "What do you mean he's not here?"

Kinch shrugged in response. "Some of the boys went out last night…" He let his voice trail off a little knowing full well that he would be interrupted.

"Went out? Last night?" The guard's eyes rolled upward. "Please, do not tell me what you are going to tell me."

"You'll still get your strudel, Shultzie," LeBeau said, leaning over to whisper to Shultz from his position in line. "I haven't forgotten."

"Cockroach?" Shultz questioned, eyebrows rising in surprise. "But who…" He stopped himself as the kommandant emerged from his office.

Rushing forward as quickly as a man of such girth could, Shultz came to attention in front of Barracks Two, clipboard held in front of him, almost as if to provide a shield from the kommandant's wrath. The kommandant tucked his riding crop more securely under his arm, reached up a hand to adjust his monacle, and yelled, "Report!"

"Herr kommandant," Shultz started hesitantly, "I beg to report that two prisoners are missing."

"Three," LeBeau hissed from behind him.

"Three?" Shultz said, surprise evident in his voice. "I beg to report that _three_ prisoners are missing?"

"Was that a question, Sergeant?" Klink responded, striding forward.

"Nein, herr kommandant," Shultz answered quickly, trying to stand up straighter and shrink down to nothing at the same time. It was quite an accomplishment for a man his size. "I beg to report that three prisoners are missing."

"Missing?" Klink demanded. Shultz nodded desolately. "Sound the alarm!" As his shout carried across the compound, the bells started to ring and the dogs began to bark eagerly. "And bring Colonel Hogan to my office immediately." He turned to stride back to his office, muttering about his perfect no escape record.

"Herr kommandant," Shultz started hesitantly.

"Is there some part of that you are unable to understand?"

"Nein, herr kommandant, but…"

"Would you be able to understand better from the Eastern Front?" Klink turned to menace Shultz with his riding crop.

"Nein, herr kommandant," Shultz answered miserably, "but Colonel Hogan has escaped."

"What do you mean Colonel Hogan has escaped?"

Kinch stepped forward out of his position in line. "Carter and Newkirk went over the wire last night. Colonel Hogan found out about it and went out after them, to make sure that they didn't get hurt."

"Carter and Newkirk," Shultz started to repeat. Klink waved a hand dismissively and Shultz's voice trailed off.

"When was this?" Klink turned to Kinch, waving his riding crop angrily.

"Last night, after lights out," Kinch answered calmly.

"Why didn't the guards see them?"

Kinch shrugged at the kommandant's question. Shultz stepped forward eagerly. "Herr kommandant, the searchlight on Tower Three was broken last night. The moon wasn't bright enough for the guards to see all the way to Tower One."

"It wasn't a bomber's moon," Kinch whispered beneath his breath.

"What was that you said, Sergeant?" Klink asked, spinning on his heel to face the American.

"I said it wasn't a bomber's moon," Kinch repeated in a louder voice.

"Yes, yes, your bomber's moon," Klink said dismissively. "I suppose that is your excuse for being here in the first place. Shultz, have the guards start the search near Tower Three. And have that searchlight fixed by tonight. There will be no repeats of this little escapade. We have never had a successful escape from Stalag Thirteen," Klink continued, waving his riding crop again, "and you would all do well to remember that. All prisoners are confined to the camp until the three escapers have been located."

He pivoted again, this time making it back to his office without being interrupted. "Well," LeBeau said, "I suppose that means that we have been dismissed." 


	4. Chapter Four

Trekking through the forest at night was never an experience to calm one's nerves. Every snapping twig was cracked under a German boot. Every breath of wind stirring the branches of the trees hid the sound of a Gestapo soldier. But trekking through the woods with the dead weight of an unconscious man in your arms was no less nerve wracking, or no less physically exhausting.

Hogan was just concentrating on putting on foot in front of the other after the first fifteen minutes of the journey. Every muscle was burning with the exertion in half an hour. After that he started to lose feeling in his arms and had to turn over his shoulder to ask, "Time for a break, Carter?" He was loathe to admit that he couldn't continue much further without resting his straining muscles.

"Yes, sir," Carter answered. His face was ashen; he was hardly picking his feet up off the ground, and Newkirk was almost carrying him. Hogan sighed and would have lifted his cap to run his fingers through his dark hair, but his arms were otherwise occupied.

Jerking his chin in the direction of the forest, Hogan tried to forge through what seemed to be the path of least resistance. Even though he knew that at this point they were trying to be caught by Klink's men, dawn hadn't yet broken and the guards wouldn't be searching yet. LeBeau probably wouldn't have even reached the camp to inform the others of what had happened. He could hear the branches breaking as Newkirk and Carter followed him into the relative security of the forest.

When he had found what passed for a clearing, or rather what was a space big enough for one man to lie and another to sit, he crouched down to deposit the man he had carried on the ground. Newkirk did the same with Carter, helping to prop him up against a tree. With his arms free, Hogan took the opportunity to make several large windmill circles to get the blood flowing in them again. Then he made the single step across the clearing to Carter.

Carter had let his head droop to his chest, not even bothering to put up an arm to support it. "Carter," Hogan started, more than a little worried about the state of his demolitions expert, "how's your head?"

"Feels like the time my friend and I drank too much of his aunt's chokecherry wine," he answered flatly.

Hogan and Newkirk exchanged worried looks. "Do you feel sick too, mate?" Newkirk asked quietly. Carter nodded, making an effort not to move his head much.

"Don't go to sleep," Hogan said firmly. "And that's an order."

"Yes, sir," Carter whispered.

"We can't let him go to sleep," Hogan whispered to Newkirk. "I'm sure he has a bad concussion and I don't know much about them except you're not supposed to let the person sleep."

Newkirk nodded. "Then we'd best keep moving. I don't know how long we can keep him awake if we're sitting here."

Hogan sighed, massaging his arms a little in preparation for taking up the body again. "Just let me take a look at him first," he said, looking over at the still form of the airman. It was worrying him that the man still hadn't woken.

Newkirk nodded, crouching down by Carter's side and shaking him a little to make sure he was still awake. Carter groaned and looked like he was going to be sick. Hogan turned away knowing that there was nothing he could do until they got back to the camp.

The airman was dressed in a flight suit over a blue dress uniform so Hogan could tell he was an officer, even without fishing around for dog tags. Not that the fact he was an officer mattered much. The uniform would probably be stained with blood and be almost unusable by the time that he was recovered enough to need one. That was, of course, assuming that he would recover.

But the man's breathing was strong and his pulse was regular. Beyond that, and the fact the man was bleeding fairly heavily from a cut to the back of his head, Hogan couldn't tell anything else. The best thing that could be done for the stranger, and for Carter, was to get them back to the camp and proper medical attention as quickly as they could. And that meant being as close as possible to the camp when dawn broke and the search began. 


	5. Chapter Five

"Carter?" Newkirk's voice carried a sharp edge of worry. It was an edge of worry bordering on panic. "Carter?" Disturbed by something in Newkirk's voice, Hogan turned to face the Englishman. Newkirk was squatted beside Carter, hand on his shoulder, trying to shake the young American gently awake.

"Newkirk?" Hogan questioned softly.

"I thought I 'eard something and turned to look. I wasn't turned away for more than a minute…" Newkirk's voice trailed off a little as he turned back to Carter, this time reaching up a hand to lightly slap a cheek. "Come on, mate, wake up."

Carter responded by turning and depositing his supper on the forest floor. Newkirk, lucky enough to be on Carter's other side, reached out to grab Carter's other shoulder to stop him from falling face first onto the ground. "Easy now," Newkirk said, that edge of panic dulling a little. But only a little.

"We'll move out as soon as he's done," Hogan declared. "We don't want him falling asleep again." It was a tough decision to make. The other airman had unknown injuries and Hogan knew enough first aid to know that transporting him, no matter how gentle they tried to be, could make some of the injuries worse. But Carter, who had already proved willing to risk his life for a stranger, was a known member of the group. And the only way he would stay awake was if they kept moving. And that meant moving the other man.

All but the worst of the stranger's wounds seemed to have clotted, and only the worst ones were still leaking blood through the makeshift bandages. Aside from wrapping another layer of torn cloth around them, there was nothing more that they could do for him, except to get him back to the camp where their medics could take a look at him or Hogan could convince Klink to send for a doctor. It was unfortunate that the night had gone the way it had; if things had been different, the airman could have been back on his way to England within a matter of days.

When the sounds of retching had died down, Hogan asked quietly, "How are you doing, Carter?"

He only got a low moan as an answer. The night wasn't looking up. "We're going to walk for a little while longer, mate," Newkirk explained, his voice falsely cheerful. "Let me 'elp you up."

Carter didn't help Newkirk at all as he was hauled unceremoniously to his feet. Pale and shaking, the sergeant looked absolutely miserable. And he was rapidly getting worse. When they had started out back at the bridge, he had been able to converse easily and walk unsupported. Now, he was barely coherent and couldn't seem to get his feet beneath him.

Hogan scooped the dead weight of his own injured man up into his arms. His muscles were still protesting from the last leg of the journey. But they didn't have the materials to make a carry, so they would have to make do with what they had. And that was nothing but themselves. Newkirk was practically carrying Carter, but as Newkirk was still trying to keep Carter on his feet, it couldn't be comfortable for either of the two men. With that not-so-cheery thought in mind to bolster him, Hogan picked up his own burden and trudged off into the forest, trailing behind Newkirk and Carter for once. Usually he led the way, but with his arms full, it was difficult to forge a track through the forest. Newkirk had the advantage of being able to free at least one of his arms from time to time.

They got about ten steps from their last position before Carter and Newkirk stopped abruptly. Carter, still held upright by Newkirk's supporting arms, was throwing up whatever remained in his stomach. Hogan couldn't set the airman down, there wasn't enough empty space, and he had to be content with resting his back up against the trunk of a tree, taking some of the weight off of his back, if not his arms.

"Newkirk, do you know what time it is?" Hogan asked.

Newkirk extricated his arm and brushed the cuff on his chin to push it back far enough so that he could squint at his wristwatch in the dim light. The trees hid the sky and they couldn't tell whether the sun had finally broken over the distant horizon. "Well, guv'nor," Newkirk responded, not taking his eyes off of Carter's heaving form, "Klink's perfect no escape record has officially been broken, at least until the guards catch us. Search should be starting about now."

"Good," Hogan answered. Carter had finished and lethargically reached up to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. "Let's set about making it easy for them to find us."

"What exactly do you mean by that, colonel?" Newkirk queried, pulling Carter upright again and wrapping one of the sergeant's arms around his shoulder.

"We take the road, heading straight towards the Stalag. We need to get these two help as soon as we can find it," Hogan stated. "Let's just hope that they're looking in the right direction."

"If Kinch has anything to do with it, he'll send them right for us," Newkirk said reassuringly. Hogan wasn't quite sure who he was trying to reassure, maybe everyone. But he started directing Carter to the road, only making detours when the path became impassable and only stopping when Carter needed to throw up. Or rather, when Carter needed to bend over and take dry heaves, because he didn't have anything left to throw up after the first two stops.

Every muscle in Hogan's arms and back were screaming with the effort of holding the airman. With every step, the weight seemed to almost double and Hogan was amazed that he still managed to keep a hold on him. He had been surprised by a lot tonight. The first time had been when the bombers arrived over the bridge. The second was Carter's heroic dash across to the airman that he now held in his arms. If their mission weren't classified, that would have earned him a mention in dispatches, if not a medal. Hogan would have to add mention of it to the file he maintained down in the tunnels. When the war was over he wanted to make sure that his men got the citations they so richly deserved.

After that, the night had been surprising in a way that wasn't nearly as good. Carter's injuries, the airman's injuries, the hellish march back towards the camp, the rest of the night had blurred into one of the worst sort of surprises. But Carter had stayed on his feet, even if Newkirk was almost carrying him. That was something that was at least less bad. And they hadn't been picked up by anyone other than Shultz and their familiar guards. That was neutral at best.

Hogan had stopped paying attention to the road before him. It was almost too much just to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Left. Right. Left. One more step. Right. Just a little further. Left. Maybe Shultz would be around the next corner, a truck ready to take them back to the camp. Right. He almost collided with Newkirk and Carter on that step. Carter had had to stop again, gasping and sputtering as he tried to throw up something that wasn't there.

Over the sound of Carter, Hogan could hear the faint sound of a vehicle. At this point, he didn't care if it was military or civilian, so long as it was someone who could get them some help. "Wait here," he ordered, lowering the man in his arms to the ground. He didn't take the time to stretch out his aching muscles; he just started walking toward the bend in the road, and the sound of the motor. The sound was getting louder, so the vehicle was approaching them, but it was still a ways off.

Hogan was around the bend and out of sight of the three men he had left behind when he saw the vehicle. It was still distant, but it was close enough that he could recognize it as one of the Stalag trucks that he and his men maintained. He tried lifting his hands above his head to wave at the truck, to attract the attention of the driver, but his arms at first refused to co-operate. The muscles were seizing up. It took two tries before his body finally obeyed the command.

The driver had obviously seen him, and his attempt to get their attention, because the truck sped up. It had been moving slowly, at what Hogan recognized as a search pace, so there must be men in the woods somewhere behind them. The truck and its passengers were the advance guard, sent up ahead to check the road. When he was sure that they had seen him, and perhaps even recognized him, he let his arms fall leadenly back to his sides, immensely grateful that he wouldn't have to lug the dead weight of another man any further. Newkirk would be equally as glad to surrender Carter into the arms of someone else.

"Colonel Hogan?" came the yell from the window of the truck as it drew close enough. It was Shultz.

"Shultz?" Hogan yelled back, sure that the bulk in the passenger seat couldn't be anyone else.

"What are you doing here? And where are the others?"

Hogan would have shrugged but it would have taken too much effort. So he just shouted back. "Carter and Newkirk are further back on the road. Carter's hurt, got hit on the head by a falling branch."

"Carter's hurt?" The truck sped up again. Hogan saw that Shultz had reached over to prod the driver into going faster. Hogan turned to walk back to the others, to let them know that help was on the way, even if it was help in the form of the Germans. "Where are you going, Colonel Hogan?" Shultz called. He actually sounded panicked.

"To tell Newkirk and Carter." He left it at that and didn't turn around. When there was no bellow from behind him, Hogan knew that Shultz wouldn't do anything about it. So he hurried toward the group he had left on the side of the road, just around the bend.

They were still right where he had left them. Newkirk had let Carter slump to the ground at the side of the road, a signpost in the middle of his back to hold him up. Newkirk was bent over the surprise addition to their group. Now that there was enough light to clearly see by, Hogan could see that Carter's face was pale, almost green. But it wasn't ashen, like Hogan had been worried that it was. The cuts and abrasions on his face had scabbed over. By his appearance at least, he could have been hit by a falling tree branch.

The truck wasn't far behind him and if Shultz continued his prodding, it would be quickly approaching. There was precious little time to concoct a story, but Hogan had practice. And they had a cache of ready-to-order stories already cooked up. He just had to pick and choose the bits that fit the best with the circumstances. They hadn't used a Dear John letter in a while.

"Newkirk," Hogan called softly, "what's the name of the girl that jilted you?"

Newkirk gave Hogan a quizzical look at first; it took a second for him to figure out what Hogan was getting at. Then it clicked. "Hillary, sir. She was a perfect 36-34-36. And it's a shame to have lost her like that to an air raid warden," he answered, putting an appropriately heartbroken look on his face. It was perhaps a little over-dramatic. "And my mate Carter, 'e came with me for moral support."

Hogan nodded crisply. He stepped over to Carter, looking over his shoulder to see if the truck had rounded the bend yet. "Carter?" He got a mumble that sort of sounded like a 'Yes, sir'. "You escaped with Newkirk last night because he got a Dear John from his girl, Hillary. Don't worry if you can't remember, you took a pretty hard knock on the head from that falling tree branch."

"A tree branch, guv'nor?"

"Yeah. Broken off by his parachute as he fell," Hogan added, looking over at the pilot. In the light it was possible to see the wings embroidered on his flight suit. "It was a bad night for the RAF."

"RCAF, sir," Newkirk corrected.

"Corporal Newkirk? Sergeant Carter? Colonel Hogan?" they heard Shultz bellow as the truck rounded the corner. "I'm so glad that we have found you."


	6. Chapter Six

The truck had to stop three times on the way back to the camp to let Carter hang over the back and vomit up the water that Shultz had forced on him. "You need to keep up your strength,' the kindly guard had maintained every time he offered his canteen to the sergeant. And Carter had been coherent enough to accept every time, murmuring his thanks. It was mildly encouraging. At some points during the forced march, he had hardly been able to string two sounds together into a word.

But their other charge, the strange airman, showed no signs of regaining consciousness. Hogan had managed to staunch the bleeding though and hopefully once they got back to camp, the medic would be able to do something more. And if that failed, Hogan would have to see if he could convince Klink to call for a doctor. Carter could use being checked out by a real professional too. It wasn't that O'Keefe, their medic, wasn't good. He did the best with what he had. But a doctor would have more supplies. And, nothing against O'Keefe, better training.

The distance that had seemed impossible to walk took only ten minutes by truck. But Hogan wasn't encouraged when he saw that Klink was pacing irritably back and forth across the compound, waiting for the truck to disgorge its cargo of escaped prisoners. Newkirk and Hogan climbed painfully down from the truck as Klink stalked toward the, riding crop tucked under his arm.

"There has never been a successful escape from Stalag Thirteen," Klink began angrily, "and you know that as well as any prisoner, Colonel Hogan. In fact, as Senior Officer, it is your duty to curtail the escape efforts of your men." Then his eyes swept over their uniforms and he noticed the dark patches of blood.

"You are wounded?" he inquired. The anger had all but disappeared from his voice. They were lucky that Klink was a humane man. His angry speech would wait until after he had ensured that they weren't seriously hurt. "Colonel Hogan, have you been wounded?"

"No, Colonel Klink," Hogan answered tiredly, "I'm not hurt. It's not my blood." Klink's eyes moved to Newkirk, the only other prisoner that he could see. "He's not hurt either," Hogan said, heading off the question. "It's the other two."

"Shultz!" Klink bellowed, almost instantly. The portly sergeant hastily climbed from the cab of the truck and hurried to stand before the balding colonel. "Fetch Flying Officer O'Keefe immediately and tell him to bring his bag."

"Jawohl, herr kommandant," Shultz responded smartly, hustling away. Hogan was grateful. Shultz only moved that fast when there was something seriously wrong with the prisoners. Or when there was the threat of the Russian front. Hogan hated either, but he would have much preferred the second scenario, he could at least exercise some semblance of control in that situation.

With Shultz dispatched for the medic, Klink turned back to Hogan. "As senior prisoner office, you should be the one to curtail these foolhardy and…" Klink blinked a few times in confusion. "Did you say the other two? Shultz!" Then he remembered that he had sent Shultz off for the medic and turned back to Hogan.

Only three prisoners had escaped, he knew that for a fact as the entire camp had been counted twice after the escapes had been discovered. And yet here was Shultz returning with not three but four prisoners. Somewhere the addition was out.

Hogan didn't have the patience or the energy to finagle with Klink and perhaps win the strange airman possible freedom. It was unfortunate, but until they could transfer the man to another camp, he would have to be a guest of the Luftwaffe. "When we were escaping, we got caught in a bombing raid. I don't know what they were trying to bomb, but they obviously weren't hitting it." He slipped into something akin to his usual banter as O'Keefe came running across the compound, Shultz puffing his way across not too far behind.

"A bomb came down almost on top of us," Hogan said, clipping his sentences shorter as he saw O'Keefe's dash. "It knocked some branches free. I guess one came down almost on top of Carter. We decided to head back. He seemed pretty badly hurt and there was nothing we could do for him. We came across one of the airmen from one of the bombers just lying on the ground not too far away. We couldn't leave him."

Then he turned away from Klink, gesturing behind him to the truck. "We're fine. It's the two in the truck," Hogan informed the medic. O'Keefe all but jumped into the truck, not saying a word to Hogan. It wasn't rudeness or insubordination; it was consideration and his devotion to the duty he had been thrust into.

"Hey, Carter. How're ya feelin'?" O'Keefe's cheerful Irish brogue drifted out of the truck. So did Carter's slightly mumbled answer.

Newkirk climbed back up into the trunk to help O'Keefe. Between the two of them they helped the unsteady Carter down to the ground. Newkirk assumed the position that he had taken during the walk back towards the camp, helping to hold Carter up, as O'Keefe climbed back in for the second man. They could hear O'Keefe talking quietly, whether to himself or the unconscious man, Hogan wasn't quite sure.

"Colonel Hogan," Klink said, "have your medic attend to the men. You may remain with them. However, when he has finished, you are to report immediately to me. This attempt will not go unpunished."

Hogan couldn't help but smile a little. They would see what punishments eventually got dished out. He was almost positive that it wouldn't be the punishments that Klink was now concocting in his head.

"Do you need help?" Hogan asked, readying his aching arms to take the weight of the stranger again. But O'Keefe emerged, shaking his head, limp body cradled gently in his arms.

"I'll be fine, sir, so long as we aren't goin' far," he answered, sliding down the tailgate and starting off towards Barracks Two. Hogan, trailed by Newkirk and Carter, followed more slowly.

The others were already waiting just inside the doors to the barracks. They would have been outside, but they had been confined indoors while the search was going on. Kinch was at the front. He looked cautiously both ways for guards and hurried out to meet O'Keefe, relieving him of his burden. Standing beside Kinch, the little Irishman looked half-grown. And the airman in Kinch's arms looked almost as though he weighed nothing by the way Kinch was acting. Hogan rubbed his aching muscles, knowing full well how much the man actually weighed.

By the time the other three were in the barracks, Kinch and O'Keefe had laid the stranger out on Kinch's bunk and were stripping away his blood-soaked flight suit. Beneath it he wore the ordered dress uniform. What the RAF thought they were accomplishing by making their pilots wear dress uniforms beneath their flight suits Hogan was never quite sure. But at least with the flight suit off, they could tell a little more about the man that Carter had rescued.

His blond hair was matted with blood and the side of his face was bruising, probably from the impact with the ground after the explosion. Blood had soaked through his uniform too, but at least it was easier to pinpoint the general location of the bleeding. The lower half of his right pant leg was still wet with it, from the knee down to the hem. His uniform had been cut by something near his left shoulder, probably flak, Hogan reflected. Blood had tricked down from the back of his head, staining the back of his uniform.

O'Keefe was cutting away the uniform with scissors. There was no sense trying to be careful about it because the uniform was damaged and stained beyond all repair anyway. But O'Keefe did take care to bypass any insignia, passing those sections of cloth off to someone else so that it could be clipped off and saved for his replacement uniform, whatever that would be. The damage that was being revealed wasn't as bad as Hogan had feared that it was during the long trip. The leg was fairly badly sliced, but they were clean cuts, probably from when he had bailed out of the plane.

But there was metal embedded in the stranger's shoulder. Hogan could see that before the uniform was even cut away from it. From the way it was sitting, it was difficult to tell the size, or even the shape of the fragments. But they would have to come out. And O'Keefe just wasn't qualified to do it. Hogan sighed; he would have to convince Klink to call for a doctor. He had suspected as much on the trip back.

"We're going to need a doctor, right?" he asked anyway, brain already working to try and figure out how he was going to swing it. O'Keefe nodded.

"I canna pull this out myself," he explained, looking at the man's shoulder. "And Carter should be seen by someone with a knowledge of head injuries."

Hogan sighed again. "Do what you can, O'Keefe. I'll get a doctor for them."

"Good luck with that," Kinch commented. "Klink was in a real flap over this escape attempt. He said something about an investigator from Berlin making a trip out to the camp next week."

"An investigator from Berlin? Not the Red Cross?" Hogan asked, reaching up to rub his chin thoughtfully. He could feel several small scratched from the branches last night.

Kinch shrugged. "All I know is what I heard. We didn't get a chance to do much else."

Hogan nodded. "Tell London that we might have to go silent for a while. And let them know that next time, they should wait for a bomber's moon to send out a mission. They blew up a couple of acres of perfectly good forest, but we were the ones who took out the bridge."

"Will do," Kinch answered, looking over at the figure stretched out on his bunk. "I'll have to use another entrance as soon as we're allowed out. And I let Sullivan know that you'd want to see him as soon as you got the chance. He's just waiting for the signal."

"Good man, Kinch. Now, I'm off to brave the Iron Eagle in his nest. I'll be back soon, hopefully with a doctor not long behind me."


	7. Chapter Seven

Hogan walked swiftly across the compound to Klink's office, still feeling his arms hanging leadenly by his side. They were aching now, along with his back, but he knew that it would be worse later, when the muscles had fully seized. But that was the least of his concern. His own physical discomfort was nothing serious. However, he did have two men whose physical injuries could be potentially fatal. They needed to be seen by a doctor and Klink was the only one who could arrange that, unfortunately.

He walked up the steps and right into Klink's office, not even stopping to glance at the pretty blonde secretary. "Colonel Hogan," Klink declared in outrage. "I would remind you that this office is not merely a revolving door and if you wish to see me without an appointment, you must first clear it with Fraulein Helga."

"You need to get a doctor in here," Hogan declared firmly. "O'Keefe'll do the best that he can, but Carter got hit on the head with a falling branch and there's not really much of anything that he can do, even if he knew how. The other man has a chunk of something lodged in his shoulder that we don't have the means to take out, not to mention that he hasn't woken since we found him."

"Colonel Hogan, need I mention that you are a prisoner here and not in a position to make demands?" Klink asserted, surprisingly determinedly. "Not to mention that you are facing punishment along with three of your men for attempted escape. How am I to know that this head injury of Carter's is not merely a diversion to avoid time in the cooler?" He stood, pacing out from behind his desk. His eyes once again caught sight of the blood that had seeped into Hogan's uniform and his manner lost some of his arrogance.

Hogan wasn't quite sure what he could say to answer that. "Under the terms of the Geneva Convention," he began. He was interrupted by an altogether too urgent-sounding knock at the kommandant's door.

"What is it?" Klink asked irritably.

"Beggin' your pardon," O'Keefe's brogue said from the other side of the door.

"O'Keefe," Hogan said, hurrying over to the door and letting the medic in, "what is it?"

Klink appeared to be ready to make some comment about whose camp it was when he saw that O'Keefe's uniform was also darkened with frighteningly large bloodstains. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking for all the world like an overgrown, balding fish. Then he abruptly inquired, "Is it your opinion that these men must see a doctor?"

"Yes, sir," O'Keefe answered firmly. "I believe that Sergeant Carter has sustained a severe concussion and is furthermore in danger of acute dehydration. And the other man, Squadron Leader MacIntyre, has injuries that I can't even begin to treat in the infirmary."

"Fraulein Helga," Klink bellowed out the open door, "connect me to the hospital in Hammelburg right away."

Not even a minute later, Klink was explaining the situation to one of the staff physicians at the hospital. O'Keefe stepped over to stand beside Hogan. "Carter passed out not long after you left," he whispered. "I hope that someone shows up soon because I can't do much more than bandage up the surface wounds; we're really not equipped for much of anything else." He sounded apologetic that he couldn't do more to help his fellow prisoners and friends.

"Don't worry, O'Keefe," Hogan said, trying to reassure the younger man when he himself wasn't overly reassured. "I know that you've done the best that you can." Then he dropped his voice another few notches and waited until Klink was again speaking to the man on the other end of the line. "Is Sullivan ready and waiting?"

"Yes, sir," he answered, darting a glance at the kommandant. Luckily he was still absorbed in the conversation. "You want I should signal on the way back past?"

Hogan nodded curtly as Klink hung up the phone. "A doctor from the hospital will be leaving presently. He agrees with your assessment of the situation, Flying Officer, and seems to feel the same urgency that you have communicated. Now, if you will return to your patients, I still require further words with Colonel Hogan."

"With all due respect," O'Keefe answered, cutting off any reply Hogan might have made, "I'd feel a good sight better if I could ensure that the colonel is himself uninjured." He made a point of looking directly at the blood on Hogan's uniform and hands. The stare wasn't lost on Klink.

The kommandant hesitated for a moment. Then he grudgingly responded, "Of course, Flying Officer." Even he couldn't deny that Hogan was covered in a conspicuous amount of blood. "Colonel Hogan, you are to permit the doctor to examine you as well, when he arrives. The punishment for you and your men will be dealt out after you have been seen. And, in the case of Sergeant Carter, after he has made a sufficient recovery."

"Thank you, Colonel," Hogan answered gratefully. He knew that he was unharmed and he was pretty sure that O'Keefe knew that too, but he would be allowed to be with his men and the punishment could wait until after he had rested enough to be able to wrangle a less severe one out of Klink. He also appreciated the fact that Carter would be allowed to recover before he was punished. It was a small gesture, but it was more than the kommandants of most camps would be willing to give.

The two Allied officers hurried out of the office, leaving Klink standing half in front of and half behind his desk, staring out the door after them. As the two officers rushed across to Barracks Two, O'Keefe pursed his lips and began to whistle a song loudly, but not so loudly that it would attract overmuch attention. His tune faded down after a second, but continued. The rear window of one of the barracks opened and another officer slipped out, darting in the shadows toward Barracks Two.

The men of Barracks Two were waiting for him and the window there opened as soon as he was close enough to be pulled in. Then O'Keefe's whistled melody switched to a jaunty Irish jig. Hogan twisted his neck, careful to make it appear that he was merely trying to ease a kink out of it. He even raised one of his protesting arms to massage the tense muscles. The guards hadn't seen anything. At least something was going right today.

Inside the barracks Hogan was relieved to find Kinch and LeBeau were lightly sponging the encrusted blood off of the man O'Keefe had identified as a squadron leader. Newkirk was performing the same ministration for the unconscious Carter.

"Klink's called for a doctor," Hogan announced to the room at large. "He should be here soon; O'Keefe did a good job of convincing them that it was serious." He didn't bother to mention the fact that he had been able to do a good job convincing them because it likely was rather serious. It wasn't a very uplifting thought and most of them were probably thinking it on their own. They didn't need to have it brought up to remind them.

Hogan wandered over to the bunk that Carter had been laid gently out on, stopping to rest a hand on Newkirk's shoulder. His hand made a few soothing motions against the knotted muscle. Newkirk looked up at him, seemingly unaware of the blood that was smeared all over his own uniform and face. "I couldn't keep 'im awake, guv'nor," he said sadly. "I tried."

"It's okay, Newkirk," Hogan answered. "Baker," he continued, "would you take over from Newkirk." Newkirk looked up at him, protests rising on his lips "We've both been ordered by the kommandant to be looked over by O'Keefe here."

O'Keefe nodded vigorously. "Be careful," Newkirk told Baker, surrendering his rag. "The whole side of his face is bruising."

"Don't worry, Newkirk," the quiet black man said. "I'll be gentle." And he made a swipe over the lanky sergeant's face that even a mother would have had trouble finding fault with.

Newkirk reluctantly followed Hogan into his office. "You want ta talk to Sullivan while I give Newkirk the once over?" O'Keefe asked, gesturing to the other man in the room, the one who had darted between the barracks. Hogan nodded briskly, sinking down onto the chair while motioning for Newkirk to take the bunk. Newkirk sank down onto the lumpy mattress, glad that the ordeal was finally almost over. All that remained was for the doctor to arrive and assure them that all would be well.

"God, Rob," Sullivan drawled, slightly disapprovingly, "what kind of trouble did you cause?" He caught sight of the warning look on Hogan's face and fell silent. Although the two officers got along better now, neither one had quite forgotten the tensions that had existed between them when Hogan first arrived in the camp.

"It wasn't a bomber's moon, sir," Newkirk piped up during the period of silence that followed the question. "But they bombed anyway. One crashed. Carter ran to save the other guy but they got caught in the explosion from the bridge."

"So at least our boys got that," Sullivan sighed.

"We got that," Hogan said stiffly. "What's this I hear about an inspector from Berlin?"

Sullivan shrugged. "Special envoy from the Luftwaffe High Command with regards to prison camps so far as we can find out. He's here to watch the way that Klink runs the camp. Colditz had an escape last month and that's the special camp. They want to know how Klink manages to keep us all here."

Hogan nodded. It made sense that Klink was this worked up over an escape attempt if he was being examined as a model for perfection. Luckily his humanity still managed to win out. "Did the last set of new prisoners get vetted?" Hogan asked, glancing over to see how the examination of Newkirk was going.

"Two kids right out of high school, a mechanic, an English teacher, and an electrician," Sullivan reported. "And, according to Lieutenant Vilene, four who are bound and determined to escape at all costs. But you're lucky in the fact that they're still serving sentences in the cooler from the last camp and Klink hasn't had the guts to intervene. We're already working on reasons to transfer those four."

"Good," Hogan replied, passing a hand over his eyes. He really was exhausted. Then he glanced at his watch. How much longer before the doctor arrived?

"It'll be at least another five minutes," Sullivan said, correctly interpreting the gesture. "They'll be fine, Hogan. I don't like admitting it, but the Kraut quacks around here are the best that I've encountered. And they honestly seem to want to help people." It was a not so veiled reference to some of the other German doctors that they had all encountered during their introduction to the German POW system.

"You're right," Hogan sighed. Perhaps this airman had landed in a good spot after all. From the cursory glance he had had at the exposed wounds, it appeared that the majority of the wounds had been caused by bailing out, not by the explosion itself. At least here he could be guaranteed proper medical treatment.


	8. Chapter Eight

Hogan shifted position, wincing as the tape on his bandages pulled at his skin. "Are you okay, colonel?" Kinch asked, glancing over from his vigil beside Carter's bed. Hogan nodded back irritably, trying not to wince again as he lifted his coffee cup up to his face. He had been right about the muscles in his arms and back seizing up. Lifting his arm from the table to his face was about the extent of the movement that he could manage at one time. If gravity didn't help him on the way down, he didn't know if the cup would ever have made it back down to the table.

"You know, mon colonel," LeBeau piped up from beside the new man, MacIntyre, "you could go to your office and rest. There is nothing further we can do until the men awake, even the doctor said so."

"I'll wait here," Hogan said firmly, suppressing a grimace. The hard bench wasn't perhaps the best choice of seating arrangements and it gave no support to his back. "What size uniform do you think we'll have to requisition for him?" Hogan asked, trying to divert his men's attention.

It didn't work. "I don't think that Klink's kindness is going to extend to giving us extra time with the lights on tonight," Kinch started, "so unless you're planning on sitting at the table all night, or breaking open your shins again trying to fumble around in the dark, you might want to find a bunk."

Hogan sighed. Even though Kinch was right, Hogan didn't like to show any weakness, not even in front of his closest companions here in the camp. He could never allow himself to entirely forget that he was their commanding officer. "You two should do the same," he answered, looking at LeBeau and Kinch. Newkirk had already been ordered to bed; he had been so tired he had fallen asleep playing cards earlier.

"We had a chance to steal a nap earlier," Kinch explained. "And the doctor said that someone has to keep an eye on them."

Hogan sighed again. The prognosis the doctor had given hadn't been overly optimistic. 'Keep a close watch on them,' he had ordered briskly. 'The next day or so is the most critical. They'll likely either show signs of starting to awake. Or, equally as likely, considering the circumstances,' he had continued, wrinkling his nose in disdain, 'descend into shock. Your medic should be notified if there is any change in their conditions.' Apparently, Hogan had commented after the Germans had all left, bedside manner wasn't taught in German medical schools.

"And, mon colonel, we were not out all last night. Remember, if Colonel Klink sends you to the cooler, this might be your last night in a comfortable bunk for a while," LeBeau added, brushing the back of the stranger's hair up and away from the freshly stitched wound at the base of his skull.

"It's sad when lumpy woodchips have become a comfortable bunk," Hogan commented, giving in and sliding down the bench to the nearest empty bunk. "Whose is this, anyway?" he asked, not wanting to deprive one of his men their bed.

"It's mine," someone answered from the far corner of the room where a quiet poker game was going on. "But we've all re-arranged sleeping arrangements for the night, to make things easier."

Hogan never ceased to be amazed how willing his men were to give up their few creature comforts to help a friend or, in this case, a complete stranger. It was almost more surprising than the willingness with which they risked their lives for the operation. After all, they all were in the camp because they had volunteered to risk their lives flying over Germany. Or, most of them had volunteered. He knew that some of the Americans had been drafted and more than likely some of the Englishmen. He really wasn't quite sure about the rest.

"Hey, LeBeau," he called, finding himself wanting to know more about this incredible group of men that he had worked with for the past eighteen months, "were you drafted?"

"Non, mon colonel," he answered quietly, not wanting to disturb MacIntyre or the sleeping Newkirk. "I volunteered before they could draft me. I never wanted people to say that I was a coward or that I had to be forced to fight for my country," he stated proudly. Then he remembered that Kinch and some of his other compatriots had been drafted. "But it was different in France. It was our homes that were being turned to ruins and I could not stand idly by." Beneath his dark hair, LeBeau's face had turned red. He knew that his explanation still hadn't managed to pull his foot from his mouth. "I mean…"

"It's okay, LeBeau," Kinch reassured him. "It's different after your country gets attacked. I'm not necessarily saying that I would have volunteered after Pearl, but I had already been drafted so it didn't matter much."

"First round pick?" Hogan asked, easing himself back so that he could rest his back against the wall. Kinch nodded ruefully.

"Lights out!" the guard barked from outside, banging his fist on the window frame. "Lights out!"

LeBeau mumbled something uncharitable beneath his breath as the men scurried to find bunks and the barracks was plunged into darkness. Kinch had been right; Klink was still sore over the escape attempt and wasn't giving them extra lights to make watching over the unconscious men easier. He had agreed to delay giving out punishments until after Carter had awoken, he had agreed to requisition new uniforms to replace the ones that had been ruined by blood, he had called for a doctor and arranged for him to return should the need arise, he had given permission for the doors of the barracks to remain unlocked should O'Keefe need to be quickly summoned, but he would not leave the lights on for one minute past the decreed hour. Hogan would have shaken his head at the irony of it all had the movement not caused too much pain.

But, despite the fact that he had two men unconscious, Hogan knew that they could have come out of the night far worse. They could have been captured by the guards on the bridge. The bombs could have gone wide the other way and caught them in the explosion. Carter and MacIntyre could have been too close to the explosion and killed. Any number of things could have happened and Hogan knew that some mission their luck might run out and all of those things might happen. He dreaded that day. It was bad enough when little things intervened, even if those little things didn't cause disasters themselves. This was closer to a disaster than Hogan ever wanted to get. One man with a severe concussion, another with severe blood loss in addition to other wounds, a third that would be sore and bruised for a few days, and himself. That was close enough to disaster.

Hogan had been as surprised as O'Keefe to find that not all of the blood on his uniform belonged to the stranger that he had lugged through the forest. Hogan had been concentrating so much on putting one foot in front of the other that he had neglected to notice that in the process he had given his knees and shins a beating. They had been rubbed almost raw and it was surprising that his pants hadn't been ripped to shred. Hogan supposed it was likely as a result of trying to forge a path through dense undergrowth without the use of his arms that had done it to him. It wasn't anything serious, hadn't even needed to be checked out by the German doctor. But it was enough to cause discomfort and a possibility for infection.

And infection was the last thing that they needed in the camp. They had no steady supply of antibiotics. The Germans would supply a precious little whenever things started looking like they would take on epidemic proportions. And London would drop a little more if it was urgent. But they couldn't count on either source unless things were desperate, in which case it was usually almost too late. The only protection they had against infection was constant vigilance. If they watched their wounds and kept them clean, usually everything would turn out fine. But almost every man in the camp was nursing some sort of cut, whether from a slip on a work detail, a tumble during a football or soccer game, a mistake with a razor, a misstep during a mission. They all had to be watched because infections spread far too easily in the close confines of the camp.

Hogan's thoughts were wandering and he knew that. He knew that he couldn't afford the short break, but he knew that without them he would be able to continue, none of his men would. Their little operation had come so far. From starting with only an escape tunnel and a plan to break half the camp out at once, they were now the first call for London if something in the area needed to be stolen, spied on, passed on to London, destroyed, or copied. It was quite a transition and it was amazing that they had managed to pull it off. In a camp this size, it was difficult to maintain absolute secrecy, and sometimes even harder to keep people from escaping. No one wanted to spend any length of time in a POW camp.

And that was where Sullivan and the rest of the camp organization came. If the camp had been a normal military installation… Well, that was a bad comparison because there was no normal military installation that could come close to the command structure within the camp. Corporals overseeing sergeants, privates commanding lieutenants, a sergeant as executive officer: no, nothing close to that would have been possible in a normal military installation. And that was probably why the operation worked so well. The men who were the most trained or the best leaders rose to the top and took command, regardless of their rank.

But his mind was wandering again and Hogan forced it back toward Sullivan. The steadfast RAF officer was the man who kept the camp above the ground functioning and made it possible for Hogan to keep the stuff below the ground running smoothly. Hogan knew that for all intents and purposes Sullivan was the real senior officer for the prisoner; Hogan was just a figurehead. Sullivan was the one who vetted the new arrivals and assigned them barracks and work details. He was the one who assessed their skills and their usefulness to the operation. He was the one who maintained the files on every prisoner, whether they were used in the operation or not.

Thank goodness for Sullivan, Hogan thought, in spite of the constant tensions between the two of them. Without Sullivan, Hogan would have been tied up in the endless bureaucracy that he hated. He would be a paper pusher, one of those men who he had directed so much scorn towards when he was still commanding a bomber squadron. One of those men like Sullivan. But more than that, he wouldn't be doing anything for the war effort. He would be stuck behind the wires, bound by his duty to help the men, and conflicted by his duty as an officer to escape.

Hogan knew that he was worried more than he was even admitting to himself. He only started analyzing the status of the camp and the roles of its inhabitants when something was really worrying him. It was a way to distract himself from what was really going on and to give his subconscious an opportunity to synthesize whatever information was causing the trouble. In this case though, Hogan knew what was worrying him. It was the two men laying on bunks across the barracks unconscious. It was one of his best men who had been hurt risking his life for a stranger and it was a stranger who but for a different moon who might now be back in England.

In the darkness Hogan didn't know how much time had passed since the lights had gone out. They had lanterns in the tunnel, but there was no easy way that they could get at them. MacIntyre was in Kinch's bunk. And Kinch's bunk was the tunnel entrance. But aside from that, they had already pushed their luck far enough with Klink for one day and he was likely to come down hard on them should they try and push it any further. So everyone was sitting in the darkness. And those men who could sleep were sleeping, a few snoring softly.

It was different being out here, with his men. At night he was usually alone, in his room or in the tunnels. The wooden walls that framed his office weren't thick, but they at least provided some isolation from the sounds of other men asleep. It afforded him a measure of privacy that he was realizing his men never got. No wonder they were so possessive about those few places that they could claim as their own, or those few things that they would refuse to let others do. Carter had his lab, Kinch his radio room, LeBeau his cooking, and Newkirk his safecracking. That was the closest that they could come to having time of their own, away from their ever-present companions.

Someone shifted and bed boards creaked loudly. Another man snorted a bit in answer, then his snoring regained its previous rhythm. The next man twitched his blankets, and the reactions rippled gently around the room. No one woke, but the one action caused a chain to break out. Hogan sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, suddenly glad for the privileges of rank. After a few moments the equilibrium of noise that passed as silence again settled over the barracks. That only lasted a few moments before there was another creak and soft footsteps across the floor.

Hogan opened his eyes, squinting to see better in the dark. He was surprised to find that he had dozed off at some point in time. Kinch's dark form was looming over him. "Colonel," Kinch whispered, "I'm going to go out after O'Keefe."

"Carter?" Hogan asked, immediately thinking the worst. There was no way that they could get the doctor in until the morning. But he would march across the compound and bang on Klink's door until Klink had at least tried to raise the doctor. He knew that for a fact.

"Yes, sir," Kinch answered quickly. "There's a clear path to his bunk if you want to sit with him while I go. It might be better if he doesn't wake up alone."

Hogan was on his feet as quickly as he could manage, stretching out his muscles a little, glad to find that his range of motion was increasing already. Kinch hurried away, quietly pulling open the barracks door and revealing the dimly lit compound that he would have to cross to reach O'Keefe's barracks. Hogan shuffled across to Carter's bunk. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness in the time that he had been asleep and he could make out the shadowy form of the stool that Kinch had been sitting on.

Hogan lowered himself to the stool gingerly and reached out a hand to the restless form of Carter on the bunk before him. A soft moan escaped the sergeant's lips as he tossed and turned. Hogan reached out a hand to smooth the hair back from his face, glad to find that the man wasn't feverish. "It's okay, Carter," Hogan whispered, not quite sure what he should be doing to make the transition from unconsciousness to wakefulness any easier. "It's okay."

"Colonel?"

Hogan had to lean closer to make sure that he hadn't been imagining the weak whisper that had escaped from Carter's lips. But when it came again, Hogan knew that he had actually heard it. "Yeah, Carter," he answered, "it's me."

"I can't see anything," Carter said, his voice starting to sound a little panicked despite its weakness and note of disorientation. "Everything's dark."

"It's okay," Hogan reassured him, "I can't see anything either. We're back at the camp and it's after lights out. Kinch just went to get O'Keefe."

The barracks door swung open again and O'Keefe, lighted lantern carried in front of him, hurried in. Kinch wasn't far behind. The two men hurried over to Carter, eliciting groans from the men nearest to them and calls from the men who had been woken by the groans. When they realized that it was O'Keefe, they quieted down, either going back to sleep or sitting up to see what the prognosis for their comrade would be.

"How're ya feelin'?" O'Keefe asked softly, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Carter moaned a little in lieu of actual words. "It's okay, m'boy, you're not expected to be feelin' well right now," O'Keefe continued, taking the seat that Hogan had quickly vacated once he saw who was in the doorway. "You've taken a good knock to the head. What's the last thing that you remember?"

"We were at the railroad track. Bombers came over but they didn't hit anything," Carter said slowly. "But there was flak. One of the bombers went down and there was another man…" His voice trailed off a little for a second. Then he asked anxiously, "What happened to the other man? I went after him, but then everything went black."

"And that's the last thing that you remember?" O'Keefe prodded.

Carter got a stricken look on his face and looked past O'Keefe to Hogan, struggling to sit up in bed. "Don't tell me that the other guy…"

Hogan stepped up to place a restraining hand on Carter's shoulder, pushing him back down to the mattress. "He's in LeBeau's bunk right now," Hogan said, not sure how much to tell Carter about the man's condition. "And once I'm done court-martialling you for acting against orders, I'm going to put you in for a Silver Star."

Carter smiled. He knew full well that Hogan couldn't very well do either and keep the secrecy of their operation intact. But he knew that the man was alive at least. His eyes were getting heavy again. O'Keefe saw and turned to Hogan and Kinch. "He should go back to sleep," O'Keefe said, "but we must wake him every hour for the rest o' the night."

"Guv'nor," Newkirk called softly from his bunk, "I'll do it."

"Okay," Hogan answered, "switch off with Kinch."

"I'm still wide awake, sir," Kinch replied. "I don't know if I could sleep even if I tried. Why don't you let LeBeau take Newkirk's bunk and I'll sit with MacIntyre for a while?"

LeBeau didn't offer any arguments as Newkirk climbed down from the bunk and as Kinch moved to take his stool by the still unconscious MacIntyre. "Merci, mon ami," he did say thickly though as he started to clamber up to the top bunk.

O'Keefe left, returning to his own barracks but leaving the lantern. The two keeping watch settled as best as they could into their uncomfortable wooden seats. LeBeau quickly joined the chorus of snores. And Hogan settled back into his own borrowed bunk, comforted that at least one of the two men that they were keeping watch over would awake in the morning. Hopefully the other would too. A smile spread across Hogan's face for the first time since the explosion that had caused this problem. Even if he spent the next week in the cooler, at least Carter would be okay.


	9. Chapter Nine

"Raus! Raus!" the guard growled, banging loudly on the door. Dawn had broken and it was time to face another day behind the barbed wire.

"We're awake!" Newkirk yelled back irritably. "Bloody Krauts."

Hogan pulled himself upright, still sore from the previous day, but at least able to move. It itched around the edges of the bandages that had been applied over his raw shins, but he wasn't about to scratch at it. Not only would that risk tearing open the wounds again and peeling away the carefully applied dressing, it would have alerted the men that all was less than perfect. He didn't want anyone who didn't have to knowing about his little scrapes. They weren't anything serious. And besides that, he was their commanding officer.

Carter was sitting up, trying to swing his legs over the edge of the bunk. "Stay there, Carter," Hogan ordered. "You don't want to get dizzy and fall."

"I'm fine, colonel," he answered, looking for his boots.

"Carter," Hogan said levelly in his most commanding tone. It was one that his men had learned not to argue with. And it was one that usually made Carter wilt like a flower in the August heat. This time, however, Carter was already wilted to start with. It was easy to tell that he was exhausted and probably still in pain from his injuries.

"Colonel," he argued back weakly, still not willing to give in to what even he knew was inevitable.

It only took a look from Hogan to make Carter sit back on his bunk, supporting himself against the wall. Hogan wished that he could do the same. With all of the noises and the worries, he hadn't had the most restful night. Every hour when Newkirk woke Carter, it had caused that ripple effect around the barracks. And it had terminated with Hogan waking every time.

"How's MacIntyre?" Hogan asked, fumbling with the laces on his shoes. He blinked his eyes to clear his vision and make the task easier.

"No change, colonel," Kinch answered. "I'd say that one of us should stay here to watch him, but I don't think that Klink would take kindly to any men missing roll call today."

"I'll do it, colonel," Carter volunteered, starting to sit upright again. "You won't let me go for roll call anyway."

"Because you should stay in bed, mon ami," LeBeau answered. "It doesn't mean that you should be taking care of someone else." The little Frenchman had dark hair sticking up in pieces all over his head.

"I can do it, colonel." If determination were everything, Carter would have been able to do almost anything at that point. He had saved that man from the explosion. He would take care of him. The young sergeant had taken responsibility for the life of this one man.

"I'm sure that you can, Carter," Hogan answered, stepping toward the door. If they hesitated too much longer they would have guards bursting in to drag them out to roll call. "But I want you doing it from that bunk." He knew that Carter wouldn't be much good to the man from the bunk, but MacIntyre had showed no signs of waking thus far. And roll call probably wouldn't be long. Then Kinch and the others would be able to oversee and make sure that Carter didn't overexert himself.

"Yes, sir," Carter answered. He looked as though he knew what Hogan was doing. But at least now he had permission to take care of this man that he had rescued. And Hogan knew that Carter would take that responsibility as seriously as any.

Hogan was the last to file out of the barracks. The guards were already heading towards it to clear out the last of the stragglers. "I'm the last out," he told them testily. It wasn't enough that they had to be up at the crack of dawn after having been up most of the night tending to wounded men, but the guards didn't have to be so willing to drag them outside if they were a couple of minutes late.

His ears caught a whistled melody floating across the courtyard. It was a moment before he could place the tune, Lili Marlene. It meant that Lieutenant Vilene wanted a meeting after roll call. Hogan sighed. It wasn't enough that Sullivan reported that four of their newest prisoners were going try to escape at all costs, but Vilene only came to Hogan personally if things were really serious. Hogan caught the Frenchman's eye and nodded. He would have to see what the man had to say, whether he wanted to or not.

"Colonel Hogan," Shultz asked nervously, "are the others in the barracks?" He really didn't want to have to report to Klink that more prisoners had escaped.

"Trust me, Shultz," Hogan answered, "they're not in any condition to escape. MacIntyre is still out and I don't know if Carter could make it out of his bunk."

Shultz looked marginally relieved, but he still asked again. "So, they are both in the barracks?"

Hogan sighed. "Yeah, they're both in there. You can check if you want."

"Colonel Klink will want to check himself later," Shultz confided. "And I am to be assigned guard duty for the next week for allowing you to escape."

It was unfortunate that Klink often punished the kindly sergeant for their escape attempts. But as sergeant of the guard, and the main guard for Barracks Two, Shultz was held responsible for the barracks that escaped the most and the rest of the guards. Hogan made a mental note to have LeBeau bake up some extra apple strudel the next time they needed to bribe Shultz. It didn't totally get rid of the guilt that sometimes bothered Hogan, but at least it helped most of the time.

"Colonel Hogan, what is wrong with that man?" Shultz asked in concern, pointing across the compound.

O'Keefe was waving his arms and trying to catch the attention of someone in the Barracks Two formation. He likely hadn't been doing it for long as very few people seemed to have noticed. But the guards and the other barracks had picked up on it far more rapidly than the sleep-deprived men of Barracks Two. Hogan gave a little wave back as he answered Shultz. "O'Keefe's just trying to get our attention."

"Oh."

O'Keefe held his hands out in fists, thumbs extended. He moved them from up to down and back again a few times, shrugging in the middle. He wanted to know how the men were doing this morning. Hogan pointed one of his own thumbs skyward and the other towards the ground. O'Keefe made a face. It obviously wasn't he news he was looking for. The medic held one hand in the shape of a C and the other thumbs up. This time the look on his face was hopeful. Hogan nodded.

It would have been easier if they could have just yelled across to one another but the guard for O'Keefe's barracks was tough on the men, even on the medic, for acting out at roll call. And it was understandable that O'Keefe would want an update as soon as possible. After all, he had been fetched out of his bunk in the middle of the night to check on them. It would have been easier to have the medic right in Barracks Two, but O'Keefe had already been there when Hogan was transferred in and it would only cause suspicion and problems in trying to have him transferred. Besides, it would leave Barracks Ten without an officer. There were few enough of them in the camp that they had to be spread one to a barracks.

"Colonel Hogan," Klink demanded irritably, "would you kindly explain that little display."

Hogan sighed. Klink wasn't in a good mood this morning. Hopefully Carter's continued weakness and the four men from the other camp who were still in the cooler would stop him from punishing the four 'escapers' for a while. "O'Keefe wanted to know how the men were doing," he explained.

"And that is the method by which the Allies communicate with one another?" Klink asked harshly. No, Klink really wasn't in a good mood at all.

"We get in trouble for yelling back and forth across to one another. How else do you want us to do it?" Hogan knew that he shouldn't get irritable with Klink, especially on a day like this. But it had been two nights in a row with almost no sleep and all of his muscles still ached.

Klink opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to think of a reply. After a second he just yelled, "Report!"

"All prisoners present and accounted for except Sergeant Carter and the new man, MacIntyre," Shultz answered.

"And where are those two men?"

"Colonel Hogan says that they are in the barracks."

"Have you checked on them yourself, sergeant?" Klink was really on the warpath this morning.

"Nein, herr kommandant," Shultz answered, confusion evident on his face. "You said that you wanted to check on them yourself."

"That didn't mean that you were not to check yourself. Are you going to trust the word of Colonel Hogan? He and his men escaped yesterday and you couldn't even manage to count how many men were missing. You will do your guard duty for the next week in full pack." Klink reached up to adjust his monocle, glaring at Shultz. It was almost as though he was daring the guard to complain.

But all Shultz did was sigh and answer, "Jawhol, herr kommandant." Klink almost looked disappointed that he wouldn't be able to give out more punishment.


	10. Chapter Ten

Vilene made his way to Barracks Two after a quick breakfast in his own barracks. The tall Frenchman was obviously worried about something; it showed in his usually placid demeanour. "Colonel," he declared, "I do not know how I can keep preventing the men from escaping without them thinking that I am a collaborator!" He paced back and forth across the confines of Hogan's small office. Hogan didn't think that he had ever seen the man so worked up before.

"But I know that I cannot let the men escape without risking everything," Vilene continued. He was so upset that he was having difficulty with his English. "After I heard what happened to Carter last night, I had hoped that they would no longer be so eager to go." He waved his hands in the air, searching for the proper English words. "But they seem not to care at all."

"Why don't you have a seat, lieutenant?" Hogan suggested. The incessant pacing was making him dizzy.

Vilene sank down onto Hogan's bunk, only to spring up again the next moment. "Je ne peut pas continuer!" he exploded. "C'est trop difficile. Je n'ai pas les amis parce qu'ils pensent…"

"Whoa," Hogan broke in. "Slow down, André!" His French was fairly good and improving all the time, but he couldn't keep up with this angry flow of words.

"I cannot continue," Vilene repeated, refusing to meet Hogan's eyes. "I am sorry, colonel. But the men have lost their trust in me, even the ones who defended me when I was first labelled as a collaborator."

Hogan sighed. He had figured that it would happen sooner or later. As escape officer, Vilene was in charge of co-ordinating the prisoners' escape attempts. But as an officer of the camp, he was also responsible for keeping Klink's perfect no-escape record intact. When escape attempt after escape attempt had failed, some of the men had immediately branded Vilene as a collaborator.

The label had hurt him. He was a loyal Frenchman and hated the whispers of association with the Frenchmen who had betrayed their country to work with the Germans. But he had withstood the association because of his devotion to duty and his certainty that his work was helping win the war. Still, having friends to stand beside him had helped lessen the blow. But now, after more than a year as escape officer with no successful escapes, even his few remaining friends had started to abandon him.

"There are four men in the cooler who are going to have to be transferred out. I'll see what I can do to get Klink to transfer you out with them,' Hogan offered. "We'll have you back with the Free French again in no time."

"Merci, colonel," Vilene answered, his frantic pacing starting to slow. "I know that I will be leaving you without an escape officer. And the men are more than anxious that ever to get out." As he calmed, his English became more fluid and his calm air began to return.

"It'll be at least a week before a transfer can be arranged; during that time, I'd like you to make a list of possible replacements. It would also be helpful if you could list off some of the ways we can foil various escape plans without appearing too obvious." It would be a helpful list to have handy; Vilene had lasted a year. Hopefully the next escape officer would last longer, but there was no guarantee that the war would end before he too had to be transferred out and replaced.

Vilene nodded, understanding that Hogan's suggestions were actually orders. "Of course, colonel," he responded smoothly. "I'll have both for you by the end of the day."

"You've done good work, André," Hogan assured him as the two men walked toward the door. "Our operation here wouldn't be possible without everything that you've done."

"You flatter me too much, colonel," Vilene replied. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have at least one more escape attempt to foil before I can go anywhere."

It was as though a great weight had been lifted from the Frenchman's shoulders as he walked through Barracks Two and out into the compound. It was such a change from the pent-up frustration that had been so apparent not even ten minutes before. Hogan was struck by the contrast and couldn't help but remember his first meeting with Vilene. The lanky young man had been flying with the Free French and had only been recently shot down. In spite of being behind barbed wire, there had been a certain calm devotion to duty that had immediately impressed Hogan. Over the past year, that easy attitude had slowly eroded away.

Until that moment, as he stood watching Vilene walk away, Hogan had never really noticed the change. It was slightly disconcerting to realize that his men were slowly burning themselves out, even the ones who weren't out blowing things up. One corner of Hogan's mouth twitched up in a wry smile: it appeared that one didn't need to be in combat to suffer from combat fatigue.

Then he sighed, knowing that he could no longer afford to continue ignoring the men at the fringes of the operation. Somehow he'd have to devise a better system. Men would have to be rotated or there would have to be a set of criteria for assessing their fitness to continue working. Hogan was slightly surprised that in the nearly eighteen months of the operation, Vilene had been the first of the command staff to actively request a transfer. But that record surely wouldn't hold for much longer. Other men had to be close to the breaking point, perhaps even his own.

That thought reminded him of the two men that had been injured the night before, not that he had ever really forgotten. Taking his coffee, Hogan wandered over to Carter's side. O'Keefe had been by earlier to check him over and had given Carter permission to get out of bed. The young sergeant had immediately taken up residence on the stool beside MacIntyre's bunk. Hogan drew up another stool so that he could sit beside Carter and keep watch over the still unresponsive RCAF pilot.

"How're you feeling?" Hogan asked, looking seriously at Carter. "Honestly."

"Still a little shaky," Carter admitted. "And my head feels like Kinch's been using it for his boxing practice." He saw the worried look on Hogan's face and quickly added, "But other than that I'm a-okay, sir."

"Sounds like it," Hogan retorted, rolling his eyes. "How's he doing?" he asked, motioning with his cup to the man on the bunk before them.

"Still out like a light," Carter answered. "But I think he's starting to come around. He sort of started moving around while you were in with Lieutenant Vilene. LeBeau went to find O'Keefe. They should be back right away."

As if to confirm Carter's statement, just in case Hogan had had any doubts, MacIntyre shifted uncomfortably on the bunk and the door burst open to admit O'Keefe and LeBeau. Hogan immediately vacated his stool to give the medic enough space to work in the close confines of the barracks.

"Ye couldna have started movin' aroun' while I was here the first time?" O'Keefe asked the unconscious man brightly, irregardless of the fact that he would not get an answer.

Carter had stayed on his stool, sliding it over to let O"Keefe access MacIntyre. Hogan was fairly certain that Carter was dizzier than he admitted to being, and guessed that was probably the reason that he hadn't bounded to his feet. "How is he?" Carter asked nervously, peering nervously at the medic.

"'Tis too early to tell," O'Keefe responded, lifting the blanket to check the bandages. "But it does appear as though he's decided the time is right for awakenin'."

"It's about bloody time," Newkirk called over. He, along with LeBeau and Kinch, were trying to occupy themselves with other things, but it was obvious that they were waiting every bit as eagerly as Carter for any signs of life from MacIntyre. Newkirk was playing cards honestly. LeBeau was neglecting his bouillabaisse. Kinch hadn't turned a page in his book in nearly five minutes.

O'Keefe didn't respond and silence descended over the barracks as people waited to hear what the medic found. O'Keefe murmured something softly, either to himself or to the pilot, then he straightened up, a broad grin on his freckled face. "Well," he drawled slowly, "I think we've got a live one on our hands. I wouldn't recommend askin' him to do anythin' for the next while, but if I 'ad to place a bet, I think he'll be wakin' within the hour."

Carter heaved a clearly audible sigh of relief. He was the only one to indulge in such an overt show, but Hogan could see the other men were permitting themselves small smiles. Everyone was grateful that the night hadn't ended in any more death than was necessary. It had already held far too much bloodshed. There were the German soldiers, and more dear to the prisoners' hearts were the members of MacIntyre's aircrew. Everyone in the barracks knew that no one else had survived; more prisoners would have been brought into the camp if there had been more survivors.

O'Keefe backed away from the bunk, crossing the barracks to take a seat at the table opposite Newkirk. "How about dealin' me in for a hand or two?" he asked. "I may even win, seein' as you're not payin' the least bit of attention to the cards," he noted.

Hogan tuned out Newkirk's grumbling, instead stepping forward to rest a hand on Carter's shoulder. He was proud of the young demolition man, however much he might have to yell at him later for his reckless behaviour. Carter knew better than anyone else the destructive effects of his bombs, and he had still taken off after the pilot. There hadn't even been any guarantees that he had been alive; he had hung motionless beneath his parachute for a long moment, until after Carter had already taken off toward him.

Carter turned to peer up at Hogan. He looked almost confused as to why the colonel was giving him the extra attention. After all, it had been only last week that he had come very close to blowing the entire camp sky high with a bad mix of chemicals. "He's going to be okay, colonel," Carter said softly, as much to himself as to Hogan. "He's really going to be okay."

Hogan looked down at Carter, surveying the purple bruises that had started spreading down the right side of his face. He felt his own scratches pull as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. "This time we're all going to be okay," he responded. He knew it wasn't very encouraging, but they all knew that there were no guarantees. There was no promise that could ensure that any of them could survive the next mission. It had to be enough that they were all going to be okay for now.


	11. Chapter Eleven

"Well, doc," Newkirk commented, dealing out another hand of cards, "I should have taken you up on that bet of yours. Your estimate was a little off." 

O'Keefe shrugged, worry and tension evident in the motion. "And I should have insisted that we play for cash," he quipped, smiling at Newkirk. But the smile was only half-hearted.

Neither of the two were paying attention to the game, even though they'd now been playing for the better part of two hours. The cards were just an inadequate distraction from what was really occupying their thoughts.

O'Keefe sighed, looking over at MacIntyre. Carter was still sitting beside the bunk, his eyes anxiously watching for any indication that his charge was finally gong to awake. It was a vigil that they were all keeping, but Carter was the only one who wasn't attempting to distract himself. It was a double sign of the sergeant's strength of will. O'Keefe knew that Carter's own injuries would no doubt have left him exhausted and dizzy, probably with a splitting headache. But the sergeant was still sitting ramrod straight on his stool.

"You know, it's times like these that I wish the title weren't just honorary," O'Keefe admitted. "I shoulda finished my schoolin' before I enlisted. Then maybe I'd actually be able to do somethin'." He was frustrated that at his own helplessness, but inwardly he knew that even if he'd finished his medical training, he wouldn't be able to offer any more help. In fact, he'd probably be able to offer less. Doctors were classified as non-combatants and weren't normally imprisoned in POW camps. And even a fully qualified neurosurgeon probably wouldn't be able to do anything with the scant supplies that the camp had to offer.

Newkirk just nodded at O'Keefe's comment. There really wasn't much of anything that he could say in response. The entire barracks was anxious to know what was going to happen to MacIntyre, but it was the worst for O'Keefe and for Carter. Those two had taken the weight of the unconscious man firmly on their shoulders. And Newkirk knew quite well how much he weighed.

Finally, he said the only thing that he could. "It's your turn, _Doc_," he said, making a point of emphasizing the title, even if it was just honorary.

O'Keefe smiled tightly, grateful for Newkirk's efforts to reassure him. Reaching out to draw a card from the centre stack, he couldn't stop his eyes from drifting over to MacIntyre again. The man was tossing fitfully on the bunk, so close to waking, but not yet awake. The waiting was by far the worst part. There was nothing that O'Keefe could do to ease the man's pain until he'd awoken and been examined. But there was nothing that O'Keefe could do to hurry the awakening.

Kinch looked up from his book, his dark eyes following the path of the medic's blue ones. "How's he doing, Carter?" the radioman asked.

Carter shrugged miserably. "He's okay, I guess," he answered morosely.

"I can come and sit with him for a while if you wanted to take a break and lie down or something," Kinch offered kindly. His sharp eyes hadn't missed the times that Carter had reached up to rub at his temples, even though Carter hadn't thought that anyone was watching him.

"I'm fine," Carter asserted firmly. "A-okay."

"The offer still stands," Kinch said, returning to his book. Only he was still watching Carter over the top edge of the page.

LeBeau waited for a few minutes, quietly stirring a fresh pot of soup on the wooden stove. After he'd scorched the first pot of bouillabaisse, he'd started a second. He knew that no matter what happened with MacIntyre, they would all have to eat some time, so he was paying more attention this time. "André, why don't you let Kinch sit with him for a few moments?" LeBeau suggested. He saw Carter's spine stiffen and quickly added, "Just while you have something to eat. You missed breakfast this morning while you were being examined."

"No thanks," Carter told him. O'Keefe's discerning eye caught the sergeant paling a little. He was still dizzy and that was no doubt making him a little nauseous. "I want to be here when he wakes up."

LeBeau bit his tongue. He wanted to say that the Canadian might not wake up for hours, if he woke at all. The German doctor hadn't been optimistic the night before. But this was not the time to say such things. So long as hope remained, LeBeau wouldn't say anything about that. It would only make Carter feel worse than he already did.

"We canna tell when he'll be wakin', Carter," O'Keefe started. "It might still be a while before anythin' further happens. I'm sure that he woulda begrudge you a cup of soup."

"I said I'm fine," Carter repeated. "I want to be here when he – Hey!"

O'Keefe instantly shot to his feet, unsure of what was happening. "Carter?" he asked sharply. At that point, he didn't know whether he'd be rushing over to treat MacIntyre or Carter.

"He's awake!" Carter exclaimed excitedly.

O'Keefe dropped his cards to the table and hurried over. Kinch, book still in hand, crossed the barracks for Hogan's office. Although Hogan was waiting as anxiously as anyone else for news of the airman, he did still have a camp and an operation to run. The colonel had had to retreat back into his office to deal with those things, but Kinch knew that he would want to be called to greet this newest prisoner.

"Why don'tcha fetch him a cuppa water?" O'Keefe suggested, knowing that the man would probably be confused about what was happening. He was going to be in a completely foreign environment, surrounded by people that he'd never seen before. Having Carter hovering over him probably wouldn't improve the situation.

Carter hurried to obey. O'Keefe noted that his steps were still a little unsteady, but that was the least of his concerns at the moment. The object of his concern was blinking rapidly, either trying to figure out where he was or trying to adjust his eyes to the sudden transition from dark to light. It was probably a combination of the two.

"I'm Flying Officer Sean O'Keefe," O'Keefe introduced himself, making a point of speaking a little slower and a little more clearly than usual. "I'm chief medic here at LuftStalag 13."

"Stalag?" MacIntyre whispered weakly.

"Unfortunately, you've been made a guest of the Luftwaffe for the duration," Hogan replied, coming out of his office and crossing to stand near MacIntyre's bunk. "I'm Colonel Robert Hogan, formerly of the US Army Air Corps, most recently senior officer here."

"Do you remember what happened last night?" O'Keefe asked gently, accepting the cup of water that Carter offered. "Drink up before you try answerin'." He held the cup up to the man's lips and let the Canadian drink.

"I don't remember much," the man answered, "but I suppose that I must have been shot down. What was I in? Couldn't have been a Stringbag."

Hogan, O'Keefe, and Carter kept their gazes on MacIntyre, but the rest were looking at one another. "It, um, looked like a Lanc," Newkirk offered, even as he exchanged a glance with LeBeau.

"Do you know what day it is?" O'Keefe asked in concern.

"If I was shot down last night, then today would be Tuesday," he answered after a second's thought. "May 21, if I'm not mistaken." He had the date right. "But don't bother asking me the time, I flooded my watch the last time I was shot down. Haven't gotten a new one yet."

"You've been shot down before?" Hogan asked, eyebrows rising. He knew that Air Command didn't usually let returned evaders return to active status over Germany; there was the chance that they'd be shot down again and forced to reveal who had helped them the first time.

"Had to ditch and spend a couple of hours in the North Sea," MacIntyre answered. "Got picked up by a couple of Scotch fishermen." He shifted his weight uncomfortably in the bunk, wincing as the movement pulled at the stitches in his leg and his shoulder. "Didn't get quite so banged up that time."

"I don't imagine the ground is quite so soft as water, squadron leader," O'Keefe commented lightly, fairly sure that the man's memory was intact. He might never remember exactly what had happened the previous day, but that wasn't overly unusual.

"Squadron leader?"

O'Keefe managed to keep his face from betraying any emotion. "Do you remember your name?" he asked evenly. How could he have made such an amateur mistake? Surely he hadn't completely forgotten how to assess someone's mental state.

"Of course, it's Philip MacIntyre. More commonly called either Phil, Jamie, or Mac, depending on who's doing the calling."

Hogan stepped forward, seeing the look on the medic's face. O'Keefe clearly wasn't sure how to address the man before him. And perhaps most importantly, how to address the issue of the man's actual rank. "If I can just get your name, rank, and service number, I can get the kommandant to file your paperwork with the Red Cross. The sooner he does that, the sooner your family finds out where you are."

"Sure," MacIntyre responded. "Philip James MacIntyre, V145117, Lieutenant-Commander."

"Okay," Hogan answered calmly. "Kinch and I will go and see what we can do about filing that paperwork."

Kinch put his book down on his bunk and followed Hogan outside. "What do you make of it, colonel?" Kinch questioned once the door had closed behind them.

"I don't know," Hogan replied, shaking his head. "We saw him parachute out of a Lancaster, and he was wearing an RCAF uniform, because there would have been no time for him to change. But he's giving us a naval rank. Something's not right."

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Radio London," Hogan ordered. "We've got too much going on right now to close things down, but we can't do anything until we've figured out if he's a German plant that's had his brain scrambled by a bad knock on the head."

"I'll use the entrance in Barracks Five," Kinch responded quickly.


	12. Chapter Twelve

"The serial number's a Canadian Navy one," Kinch reported quietly, coming into Hogan's office. "But they couldn't tell me much else right off the bat. They said they'd check into it with the naval authorities and get back to me."

"Any idea when?"

Kinch shrugged. "No idea."

"They tell you what a navy man would have been doing in an air force uniform?"

"Couldn't tell me that either. They said that sometimes Fleet Air Arm pilots train with air force units, once they switch over from sea duty. But they didn't have an explanation for the uniform."

"Thanks, Kinch," Hogan replied with a sigh.

"You're welcome, sir. I just wish I had more information for you," Kinch said, "especially since London wanted me to remind you about that factory the Germans set up between here and Dusseldorf."

"Like I could forget," Hogan declared, shaking his head. London closed off every transmission with a reminder about that plant.

"How's he doing?" Kinch asked, looking toward the closed door.

"O'Keefe says okay," Hogan told him. "He won't be up and about for another day or two, because of his leg, and I'm sure that O'Keefe could be prevailed upon to keep him in place for another day or two after that. So if he is a plant, we've got four days to make sure that he won't see anything we don't want him to. The sooner that London gets back to us with some answers, the sooner we can actually do something."

"Has he said anything else?"

"Of interest? Not really. He's been sleeping off and on, more on than off. Carter would know more than anyone else; I don't know if he's left the guy's side."

"Carter's pretty sure that he's not a plant?" Kinch asked. Carter might be naïve, but he was the one who had risked his life to save MacIntyre, if that was in fact the man's name.

"If it weren't for the whole uniform confusion, _I_'d be sure he's not a plant," Hogan declared. "We saw him parachute out of the bomber."

"If the Germans can do that, then we're really in trouble," Kinch commented quietly. "If they can do that, then there's not telling what else they might do to catch us in the act."

"That's what I'm worried about," Hogan admitted. "Let me know right away when you find out anything else, will you, Kinch?"

Kinch nodded solemnly and headed back out in the barracks, wanting to a chance to form his own opinion of the new arrival. MacIntyre had certainly set the camp talking; even the men who didn't know anything about the operation were gossiping about this airman who claimed to be a seaman.

It wasn't hard to find MacIntyre as O'Keefe had ordered that he couldn't be moved until at least the next day, but Kinch knew that it was a wonderful vantage point if MacIntyre was a plant and wanted to see the workings of Hogan's barracks. It was an easy enough trick to feign sleep and observe what was going on. And there was certainly always something going on, especially in Barracks Two, the hub of all the activity.

Carter was sitting beside MacIntyre's bunk, alternating between anxiously watching the man sleep and reading a dog-eared paperback, and Kinch felt a sudden stab of hope that this man might prove exactly what they'd taken him to be. It was not only for the sake of the operation, but also for Carter's sake. Harsh as they all might be on him, they all looked at him in something the spirit of a younger brother. Watching the sergeant now, his face bruised and battered from his act of daring, Kinch felt more protective than ever. Silently, Kinch vowed to make MacIntyre pay if he'd forced Carter to disobey his commander and risk his own life all on a ruse.

Carter heard Kinch's footfalls behind him and spun on his stool. "Anything?" he asked simply.

"Not yet," Kinch told him.

Carter's face fell. "We saw him come down," he whispered desperately.

"I know, mate," Newkirk said softly from his spot at the table. He was half-heartedly playing solitaire. "I know."

Kinch sighed and looked around the barracks. People were unusually silent, but he wasn't sure whether it was out of respect or secrecy. "Come and walk with me, Carter," he said on a whim.

"I'm good here," Carter asserted. "I don't want to leave him alone. Just in case." He didn't say just in case what and Kinch didn't ask.

"One of the other guys can sit with him for a while. I've got something that I need your help with," Kinch insisted. He'd have to think of something later, but he was betting on having at least a little time. Carter wouldn't breach the security precautions they'd hastily slammed in place, no matter what else he might have on his mind.

"Newkirk?" Carter asked hopefully.

"I'll be right here," Newkirk replied, flipping over another couple of cracked cards.

Carter thought about it for a minute and decided that was a good enough assurance. He stood up and followed Kinch out into the bright sunshine. It was quite a change from the darkness and fear of the night before, although Carter didn't remember any of that. "What did you need me for?" Carter asked when they were alone, sequestered in an out of the way corner of the compound.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were doing okay," Kinch admitted. "I wanted to make sure that you could talk about things, if you wanted to, without everyone else listening in."

"He's not a plant, Kinch," Carter declared. "I know that you think he is, but you weren't there. You didn't see it."

Kinch sighed. No, he hadn't been there. He was rarely there. "I trust you, Carter," Kinch assured him. "You saw it all happen."

"I don't remember much," Carter admitted more quietly. "I just remember seeing him hanging there and knowing that if someone didn't go and get him, he'd get caught in the explosion. I had to do it, Kinch. I would have had to even if he would have been a German."

Kinch nodded solemnly. It was different being up in the air. Up in the air you were isolated and although you knew intellectually that people were dying, you couldn't see their faces and you never heard their screams. The work that they did was different and he couldn't fault Carter for wanting to be the preserver of life for once, rather than the bringer of death. "You did a good thing," Kinch told Cater seriously. "It took a lot of guts."

"Shucks," Carter said with a blush. "It didn't really. Once I made up my mind, I didn't have to think about it any more. And after that, I don't really remember anything."

"It might come back," Kinch replied.

"Doesn't matter," Carter responded with a shrug. "I remember what's important."

"Okay, but if you ever need someone to talk about, whether it's about what you do remember or you don't, you can always come to me," Kinch stated. "I know I'm hard on you sometimes, but I'm here for you if you need it."

"Maybe I finally got some sense knocked into me," Carter joked, smiling to let Kinch know that there weren't any hard feelings about anything. His smile was only a half smile because of the bruises on his face, but there was nothing half-hearted about it.

"We can only hope," Kinch laughed, patting the younger man on the shoulder.

"When do you think London will be able to tell us he's not a plant?" Carter asked, his question firmly asserting his faith.

"It depends how long it takes for them to find out for themselves," Kinch answered with a shrug. "If they've got to go through naval channels, it might take longer than we're used to. You know how well the branches like to work together."

"Sure I do," Carter laughed. "There was this one time, not long before I shipped out to England, when some of my friends were trying to arrange a meeting with some naval nurses. They wanted me to come along, but it was just as well that my leave was different from theirs because…"

Kinch nodded in the right places, listening to the somewhat rambling story that concluded with a point that almost but not quite illustrated what Carter had originally set out to prove. Normally he might have cut in and demanded that the exuberant sergeant get to the point already, but after last night, Kinch was just happy to hear that Carter was still himself, whether some sense had been knocked into him or not.


End file.
